Developer and consultant Shenglong Gao has, like the rest of us, spent a lot of time dealing with email, text messages, and phone calls—so much so that he's gotten a little obsessive about it. The result is the 2-2-2 rule, which imposes a strict time-to-reply on each type of communication: Gao picks up calls in within two seconds, answers texts within two minutes, and responds to email within two hours.

It's unfortunately a little too easy to get in the habit of reading but not responding to communication—telling yourself instead that you'll get to it later. Later comes, you already know what the message is about, so you continue to put off re-opening it and replying. Gao's method focuses on quickly responding to any communication in a relatively reasonable timeframe, and, in ways, is quite similar to GTD author David Allen's two-minute rule, which states that "If the Next Action can be done in 2 minutes or less, do it when you first pick the item up. Even if that item is not a "high priority" one, do it now if you're ever going to do it at all." The 2-2-2 rule isn't practical for every situation, but if you're not happy with your communication turnaround time, imposing it (or a rule like it) might be just what you need.

The catch: If you receive a lot of email, for example, you don't want to spend all your time checking and replying as new items come into your inbox. The solution: Batch process that email, only at set times. Photo by Nate Steiner.